Into The Darkness They Go
by kate04us
Summary: Add-on to 5x11 - "White Lies pt. 1" What happens when Sharon and Andy get home? They find a way to get through the darkness - together.


**Into The Darkness They Go**

by Kate04

 **A/N:** Add-on to 5x11 – "White Lies pt. 1" This is entirely **Kadi219** 's fault! She hatched that plot gremlin, fed it, bathed it and put it into my bunny cage. She also did a quick beta, but don't blame her for any remaining mistakes. Those are on me.

The title is shamelessly borrowed from one of my favorite poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

 **Disclaimer:** Not my sandbox, not my toys. No one pays me for playing with them.

 _Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before._

 _\- Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven_

When they finally called it a day, Andy Flynn was ready to drop. Every bone and every muscle in his body ached as he wearily trudged towards the elevator. The others had left a few minutes earlier, but he had lingered a while longer. Sharon had a brief meeting with Deputy Chief Howard to give him an update on their current status. She would meet him at his car. It had been suspiciously easy to convince her to leave her car behind and let him drive her home, but after the last couple of days, he was glad to have avoided that fight.

He turned a corner in the almost deserted hallway and slowed down slightly when he saw her approaching the elevators from the other end. Andy's heart ached at the sight of her slightly hunched shoulders, her pale cheeks and the carefully blank expression. She looked as if she was cold, and he wanted to put his arms around her and hold her close. It had been a burning need inside him ever since the first shot had been fired the other day, but he knew that it was not possible. Not until they got home.

Andy shivered at the memory of those terrible moments the day before. He and Amy had been stuck farther down the row of seats from Sharon and Taylor when it had happened. He had wanted to pull his gun, but there had been too many people around him. They had been screaming and scrambling to get to safety. Neither he nor Amy had been able to even think about using their weapons in that chaos without taking the risk of harming some of the fleeing people. He had pushed them towards the end of the row, trying to get them out. Over the mass of heads he had seen both Sharon and Taylor getting into position. The Chief had had the dirtbag right in front of him, but someone had bumped into his arm, pushing it upward and causing the shot to go into the air. The breath had caught in Andy's throat when Darnell had whirled around to face towards the back of the room, towards Sharon and Taylor. It had been the latter who had gone down before he had been able to acquire his target again.

It had all been over in a matter of seconds. Their Captain had put three rounds into the creep, no hesitation in the way she advanced on him. Only when he had been down and she had kicked the weapon away from him did her mantle of cold professionalism slip a little. Or maybe the slight tremor in her hands had been in his imagination. He had wanted to run to her, to make sure she was unharmed, to hold her, but none of that was professional, and it had not been what she had needed, either.

Andy had shot enough dirtbags in his career to know what that could do to a person. No matter how justified the shooting, how many innocent lives it saved, it always left its traces on the shooter. It certainly had on Sharon. As far as he knew, she had only shot one person before that day, way back when she had still been in patrol. He expected her to struggle more with it than other officers.

When he had sat next to her in the almost empty courtroom, he had known that she was in shock. Her fingers had been curled around her gun, holding onto it until she could turn it over to FID. She had seemed smaller somehow, almost curled into herself, as far as that was possible while still sitting upright. She had responded to the people around her, had interacted and given orders, but something had been missing. Her eyes had been strangely blank, and yet there had been a stormy ocean of emotions just beneath the surface. His hand had rested on the back of her seat, itching to reach out to her, close enough to her shoulder to feel the heat of her body. He had stayed back, however. The man who loved her had been wrestled into the back of his consciousness, tightly controlled by her Lieutenant. It had been what she needed. It had been what he needed.

Andy, just like everyone else who had been in the room, had been shocked as well. These things were not supposed to happen. There were security measures in place that were supposed to stop people like Darnell. But it had happened. They had lost good people. They might have had their differences in recent years, but Russell Taylor had once been Andy's friend. He had known the man for many, many years. He knew his wife and kids. Hell, Taylor's youngest son had only just started his last year of college. They would have to do something for them. Andy vowed to organize something as soon as the case gave them a moment to breathe. Nothing he could come up with would ever be able to make their loss any easier, but maybe they could at least help out financially. For the moment, he would focus on getting Sharon home and help her deal with what happened in whatever way she would let him.

He waited for her in front of the lift, holding the door open, and stepping inside right behind her. His hand instinctively landed at the small of her back and he felt a shudder go through her slight frame before she took a step away from him, from his touch. They rode down to the parking level in silence, both staring at the closed doors. When they opened to release them into the dimly lit garage, they walked along the rows and rows of cars side by side, always separated by a few inches. The ride home was just as quiet. Sharon stared out of the window, motionless, clearly deep in thought, a frown firmly in place. Her hands were folded in her lap, and if it were not for her white knuckles, he might have missed the force with which she clasped them together to keep them from shaking.

He had caught her several times over the last hours trapping the trembling appendages under her arms or sliding them into her pockets, and every time he had wanted to take them between his own hands and hold them until they were steady once again. Even as he navigated them through the late evening traffic, he wanted to reach over to wrap his fingers around her clasped hands. Instead, he gripped the steering wheel tighter and kept his eyes on the road ahead of them.

Only when he pulled into Sharon's parking spot in the garage attached to her building did the woman next to him move. She slowly reached down to retrieve her purse, opened the door and dragged her tired body out of his car. They both closed their doors at the same time, the resulting sound echoing through the underground structure. He noticed how she flinched at the noise before she squared her shoulders once again, waiting for him to round the car before they made their way to the lift a few yards away.

Once they were inside the empty elevator, Andy finally broke the silence between them. His voice was low, not much more than a quiet rumble. "Where's the kid?"

Next to him, Sharon swallowed before she answered, never taking her eyes away from the spot where someone's shoe had left a black smudge on the floor. "With Gus." She sounded as if it took almost too much effort to get the words out, and there was that slight hitch in her voice he had caught a few times since the shooting.

Neither one of them spoke again as the numbers ticked away on the display, bringing them closer to their sanctuary, to a few hours away from hatred, and chaos, and heartbreak. But all those things followed them, a dark shadow looming over them. The failure to grasp the sheer depth of contempt the human soul was capable of. The ominous feeling that they had not seen the worst of it. The pain of losing a friend. Those things could not be left behind. They stayed with them and would do so for a very long time.

When they approached her condo, Andy gently took the keys out of her hands, not commenting on the way she had fumbled with them. He unlocked the door and stood aside to let Sharon enter before he followed her, closing and locking the door behind him. By the time he turned around once again, Sharon had already vanished around the corner. Her purse sat on the small hallway table, precariously teetering on the edge where she had carelessly deposited it. She would go straight to the bedroom to change into something more comfortable, he knew. It was something she did most nights.

Setting her purse on the table properly, Andy placed his badge and gun next to it before he toed out of his shoes, pushing them underneath the table. He made his way into the kitchen to prepare two cups of tea. He knew that she probably would not want to drink wine tonight. Not after what had happened. Choosing a calming chamomile blend, he prepared the mugs while he waited for the water to boil.

The tea was long done and had already started cooling when he finally decided to see what was taking her so long. Usually Sharon did not take more than five minutes to change, clean her face, and brush out her hair, but it had easily been twice that long.

Their bedroom was bathed in the soft light of the lamp on her nightstand, more light streaming into the empty room through the half-open bathroom door. A pair of yoga pants and one of his old t-shirts lay on the bed, waiting for her to slip into them. He rounded the bed and stepped into the bathroom, stopping in his tracks at the sight that greeted him.

Sharon had never been as glad to come home as that night. The last couple of days had been more difficult than she had ever believed possible. Those few, horrible seconds kept playing before her inner eye again and again. She tried to find out where she had gone wrong, what she could have done differently in order to save Chief Taylor. Despite everything, she did not regret shooting Darnell. She was sorry that it had been necessary, but necessary it had been. Who knew how many more people would have died or been injured if she had not acted? It had been the right call. Even her former colleagues from FID and the department psychologist had agreed on that. There was no question that her use of force had been justified, and she had known that even before she had pulled the trigger. That did not change the way she felt about it, however.

They tried to prepare recruits for that situation. It was discussed at length at the academy. And yet, nothing could prepare one for the reality of deliberately shooting several rounds into the body of another living person. She had done it once before, when she had been a patrol officer, fresh out of the academy. Back then, she had only wounded the man. He had recovered and been able to stand trial for his crime. Dwight Darnell would never get that chance. She had ended his young life with three bullets. There was a mother who was grieving because she would never speak to her son again, would not be able to mend the bridges that time and political differences had broken. She had looked that woman in the eye, had felt sorry for her, but she had yet to feel any regret for killing the man.

Sharon had always thought of herself as a compassionate person. The idea that people like Darnell were so obviously incapable and unwilling to feel any compassion for their fellow human beings was something she could not wrap her head around. She had seen many criminals, many misguided or sick people, but hatred on this scale was hard to comprehend.

Whenever she thought of Darnell and of what she had done, Sharon felt nothing. She had taken another human being's life and she did not feel the slightest bit of remorse. It was that more than anything that troubled her. She despised him for having turned her into that, into someone who was unable to regret killing another person. It was that feeling that had been hard to suppress over the last hours.

Her emotions had been all over the place. Mostly she felt numb. It was shock, she knew. It was also the only way she had been able to make it through the last thirty hours. The numbness only barely managed to hide the tsunami underneath, waves of grief, shame, anger, hopelessness, and even hatred. It had been a struggle to keep it all down, to remain professional. As long as she had focused on the case, it had been easier. Only when the people around her had asked about her well-being had she struggled.

There were not enough words to express how grateful she was to Andy for realizing that she needed her Lieutenant more than she needed her partner. A small part of her wanted nothing more than to let him wrap his arms around her, to lean into his strong chest and let everything else fall away. Whenever she had allowed her mind to wander there, the tears had threatened to fall and her mantle of calm control started to slip. She was glad that he had understood that, that he had not been hurt by her need for distance. The only thing she regretted was her inability to comfort him. Andy had lost a friend as well. She had been able to see his pain and grief, and it made her heart ache to stay away from him.

That would end as soon as she had shed the last bit of the Captain, however. That was why she had walked straight to their room. She wanted to strip out of her work clothes, to deliberately leave the job behind, to step out of her professional role. After that she would be free to give and seek the comfort they had gone without for so long.

Sharon walked into the bathroom, already shrugging out of her blazer on the way. When she stepped up to the vanity, she laid the navy jacket beside the sink. Just as she was ready to tug her white shirt out of her skirt, her eyes fell onto several dark spots on one of the sleeves of the discarded garment.

She could no longer breathe. Her throat was closing up and her stomach turned violently. She pressed a hand against it, the fingers of the other curling into the soiled fabric in front of her. Her heart raced, blood rushing through her veins, roaring inside her ears. Blood. His blood. Taylor. She had stood so close to him when he was shot. Warm blood on her face. Cold body on the ground. Dead. He was dead. Those words played like a refrain inside her head, interrupted by the deafening sound of gunshots. _Dead – Bam – Cold – Bam – Gone – Bam – Dead- Bam_ – over and over until her head was spinning. Her nails dug into the soft skin of her stomach, her thin shirt offering little protection. Her lungs burned. Breathe. She could not breathe. The room started tilting.

Then there was a voice in the distance, calling her. Lifting her head was almost impossible. When she did, she saw him. His lips moved, and she heard his voice, but the words made no sense. It did not matter. He was there. Somehow she started moving towards him until he was right in front of her, all around her. Tall, strong, warm, and so very alive. She let the blazer slip out of her hands as she brought her arms around his solid form, clutching his jacket instead. She wanted to crawl inside him, her shivering body desperately seeking his heat. When his arms wrapped around her, fiercely holding her to him, the dam broke. All the emotions rushed out of their tight confines, wave after violent wave, and she poured all of it into an almost brutal kiss.

There was no hesitation. Andy responded immediately, just as desperate to connect as she was. He walked her backwards until she was trapped between him and the vanity. She felt his growing arousal pressed into the soft pillow of her stomach. She slid her right leg along the back of his, curling it around his hip to press herself closer to him. One of Andy's hands caressed her thigh, pushing the skirt up as far as it would go until he could palm her ass, pulling her closer.

Their lips and tongues and teeth met again and again in a hunger that would not be stilled, their lower bodies grinding together as fingers struggled to remove hindering layers of fabric. Sharon did not know why, but the need to feel his skin against hers was overwhelming. There was something dark inside her that fought to be released, that sought an outlet. It was everything she had bottled up over the past thirty hours, everything she had not allowed herself to feel. It frightened her, but there was no turning away from it. She sensed a similar darkness within Andy. It was as if their souls were drowning in it, reaching out towards one another for salvation.

Once the last piece of clothing was gone, cast away and forgotten on the tile floor, Andy lifted her to sit on the cold marble surface beside the sink, pushing her knees apart and stepping into the space in between. She wrapped both legs around him, pulling him against her, his length pressed against her swollen folds. She was desperate to feel him inside her, to find the ultimate connection. Her hand reached between their bodies, fingers firmly wrapping around him to guide him to her entrance.

He pushed into her with one long thrust, barely giving her time to catch her breath before he started moving. His pace was frantic, her walls protesting against the intrusion. She was far from ready for him, but neither one of them cared. She welcomed the pain. It was sharp as a knife, slicing through her again and again, and she embraced it. Finally, there was something tangible, a feeling she could grasp and hold on to, something to cut through the fog and the numbness.

Sharon met him thrust for thrust, her fingernails clawing at the skin of his back. She leaned her head to the side as Andy's lips slid along her jaw and down her neck, sucking and biting at the delicate skin behind her ear. She turned her face into his neck and mimicked his actions, biting down hard where his neck met his shoulder, satisfied when he grunted in pain.

One of Andy's hands held onto her hip, his grip hard enough to bruise, the other restlessly travelled over her back, along her spine, up her side, cupping her breast. He rolled her nipple between thumb and forefinger, tugging hard before he dug his fingers into the supple flesh, making her moan at the exciting mix of pain and pleasure that shot through her body.

She was so close, almost able to taste her release. It was coiled tightly inside her, a living thing fighting to be set free. Nothing outside of the two of them mattered to her anymore. It all fell away as they raced towards the precipice. It did not matter that she would be bruised and sore or that her nails had drawn blood on his back. It was unimportant that her neighbors were probably able to hear her screams. There was no controlling it.

When her release finally came, Sharon thought for a moment that she would pass out. She went over the edge in a way she had never experienced before. It felt as if she was falling, her stomach turning and her head spinning. Everything was light and sounds, the roaring in her hears almost deafening. In all of that unimaginable chaos, one thing kept her grounded. Even through the weightlessness, the spots dancing in front of her eyes, and the nauseating feeling of the floor dropping out from underneath her, his body was solid against hers, his arms holding her safely to his chest as if his life depended on it. Maybe it did. Maybe he felt the same way as she did.

They clung to one another for a long time, their bodies covered in a thin layer of sweat, hearts beating wildly, and breath heavy. When he finally felt like his legs would support him again, Andy tightened his hold on Sharon and lifted her off the vanity.

Her arms and legs held onto him as he carried her out of the bathroom and towards their bed. For a moment, she considered protesting, to tell him that they needed to take a shower, but the thought of letting go of him, even for the few minutes it would take them to rinse off the evidence of their encounter, was inconceivable.

He gently lowered her to the soft mattress after quickly pulling back the heavy quilt cover. Sharon crawled under the blanket, holding it open for him to slip in next to her. Once he was settled on his side, facing her, she scooted as close to him as possible, seeking the comfort of his embrace once again.

It was there, in the safety of his arms, that the wall she had built around her emotions finally crumbled. She turned her face into his chest and cried for the first time in a long while. Her entire body shook with her sobs as her tears kept coming. Andy simply held her, one hand buried in her thick hair, the other soothingly caressing her back. His lips were pressed against the top of her head, mumbling calming nonsense against her skin. He never let her go, even when her sobs grew quiet, when her body stopped shaking against his, and when her tears finally dried. He kept holding on to her, never once breaking the almost hypnotic up and down of his hand along her spine. He waited patiently for what both of them had known would come eventually.

Sharon took several deep breaths, her lungs finally able to expand again properly, the feeling of someone sitting on her chest, which had started the moment Darnell had fired the first shot, gone. Andy's strength and patience, his understanding and the familiarity of his scent – a mixture of fresh sweat, his lingering cologne, and his own, unique scent – were a balm to her troubled soul. They did not take away the pain and guilt she felt, nor any of the other emotions than were a chaotic jumble inside her head, but they were a first step towards regaining control over herself, a step away from the darkness that was threatening to swallow her up.

When she began to talk, it was not a conscious decision. The words had been there, tumbling around inside her for many hours, unheard, unspoken until they could no longer be held back. Her voice was raspy and deep, a quiet whisper stirring the salt and pepper hairs on his chest.

"I killed a man," she stated, the simple words heavy with everything she carried in her heart.

Andy tightened his arms around her briefly, pressing his lips more firmly against her head.

"You had no choice. You did your job. If you hadn't, many more people would have died. It was the right thing to do."

She nodded at his words, pushing any thoughts about Darnell's victims out of her head. She was not ready to think too much about Russell Taylor's death, let alone speak about it. Nor was she prepared to think about what might have happened if she had not had a clean shot at that moment, if Darnell had had more time. Who would have been next? That question was better left unanswered.

"I know that, Andy. I know that it was necessary and justified."

She was silent for a long moment, carefully considering her next words. It was not easy to admit, even to herself, what was really troubling her. She had briefly mentioned it to Lieutenant Provenza earlier, but back then she had hardly felt anything at all. Everything, the pain, the guilt, the shame, all of it had been buried beneath a thick blanket of impenetrable fog. It was different now. Andy had been able to penetrate the protective layers shock had constructed around her, leaving her feeling bare, vulnerable.

"I killed a human being and I don't even feel the slightest bit bad about it. What does that make me?" she asked. A part of her was scared of his answer, another part was genuinely interested in it.

"It makes you human," he replied without missing a beat. "Dwight Darnell was a murderer. He killed innocent people without feeling any remorse. He shot people you knew in front of your eyes."

She shook her head, her hum of disagreement barely audible. "But I should still feel at least some regret for taking a life, no matter how deplorable a person he was."

"I think you're being a little hard on yourself, Sharon. Give yourself a break. You're dealing with a lot right now with the case that's far from being solved and with Taylor's death, not to mention everything that might mean for the department in the long run. You need time to come to terms with what happened, to get over the shock, and to grieve. We all do." He kissed her forehead, his fingers gently tugging a few errand strands of hair behind her ear. "If feeling bad about Darnell is not first on your priority list right now, no one can blame you for that. You will get there when you're ready. In the meantime, I'll be right beside you every step of the way. If you need to talk or just vent, I'll always listen, and I won't judge you or think any less of you, okay?"

Sharon closed her eyes against the sting of fresh tears. How was it that he knew her so well, that he was able to pick up on her fears just like that? She swallowed the lump in her throat and hugged him even tighter, before she pulled back far enough to look him in the eyes. One hand cupped his face, her thumb gently caressing a stubbly cheek. "I know, and you have no idea how much I appreciate it, how much it means to me to have you in my life," she rasped, her lips only inches from his.

Andy closed the gap and kissed her tenderly, lingering for a moment to soak up the comfort that could be found in the simple gesture. When he pulled back, she stared at him long and hard, her expression serious. "You know that I'm here for you, too, don't you? No matter what is going on inside my own head, I will always have an open ear for you. I know that this is hard on you, too. Please don't bottle any of that up just to protect me," she implored, narrowing her eye slightly as she waited for his response.

The corner of his mouth twitched slightly, not quite a smile, but close, before he brushed her lips with his once again. "I promise. We'll get through this together. It's going to be okay."

With one last, lingering kiss, Andy pulled her close again, tugging her head down to rest against his chest as they settled into the pillows. Sharon released a long breath as she allowed her body to relax next to his. Andy's words had not made any of the pain or guilt go away, but they had given her hope, a little light to hold on to while she moved through the darkness that kept pulling at her. He was her safe harbor, a place for her to rest her weary soul, and she hoped that she could be the same to him. As long as they did not let go of one another, they would be all right eventually.

 **~THE END~**


End file.
